Pacing
by D.K. Archer
Summary: A bit playing with Hook's character, and practice for a longer piece. R/R please! I'd love to know whether I got him right.


Pacing  
D.K. Archer  
  
Note: I do not own Hook or Peter Pan, I assume the author does unless he sold his rights.  
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ex: this is just a short bit playing with the character of James Hook. Though I still haven't gotten him down quite right, I hope to by the time I write the longer fic this is practice for. Reviews are most welcome, not only because I love to know my stuff gets read, but also because I would like to know how accurate you find this. Enjoy!  
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The stiff wooden floor of his quarters rocked gently under his feet as Captain Hook paced. The hour was late but this behavior was not uncommon for the man, who slept but infrequently and rarely well. The rest of the crew of the ship, if you could call such crude animals a crew and such rotting mess of planks a ship, were largly asleep by now. He heard none of their clamoring or boorish racket on the decks above him or the compartments below, where most of the dogs spent their nights in snoring peace. Ah! to be simple enough to live like that! Crude though they may be, few were intelligent enough to harbor these anxieties which dragged Hook night after night to pacing. In fact, the man couldn't remember the last time he'd slept soundly for a night. Certainly not since coming to Never Land, and he doubted much before, either. He couldn't remember, though. Odd. Hook paused and pressed the crook of his hook to his chin, thinking.   
  
Before Never Land. It seemed like nearly an abstract concept, now. He'd been here for so long....how many years now? More than he had kept clear track of, and certainly more than he'd ever thought possible. Had he aged since he'd come here? He couldn't remember ever looking differently. But then, time held little sway in this place, where winters could pass in a moment and summers stretch on for years. The only ones who ever seemed to age were the redskins, and then only slowly, and a select few. And the other one who never seemed to age.....Peter Pan.  
  
His moustache twitched angrily and his eyes seemed to spark at even the thought of the boy. Cockish, forgetful, adventurouse, truly a creature of the moment. He was the essence of boyhood, and Hook hated him. Oh, of course it hadn't always been so. When Hook and first arrived he had stumbled about, confused, before joining the crew of the Jolly Roger, though he had no concept of piracy in him. He had challenged the captain for controll of the ship, and won splendedly. Not a day after he had encountered the lost boys for the first time. They seemed to be an old enemy of the ship, and the crew insisted they fight. Hook had felt odd about battling with so young an opponent, and his reserve had allowed Peter to press a fight with him. Hesitation on his part had given Peter the window he needed to lunge forward and lop off his hand with a stroke of his sword.  
  
For some time afterward he could not remember the events directly after, only that he woke up sprawled back on the boards of his ship, stumped limb cauterized with a heated iron and in tremendouse pain. His men had brought him back after the fight was over. He'd nearly bled to death.  
  
Only some days later did his mind dredge up the events proceeding Peter's lunge. Hook had fallen to his knees and crushed his bleeding wrist in his palm, his oddly colored blood running in rivulets to the earth. Peter had laughed, victoriouse, and quickly tossed the severed flesh away. A quick snap, a low bellied scurry, and a crocodile had snatched up the bit and swallowed it whole.  
  
Then he'd passed out.  
  
Hook began pacing again. Footsteps were heard passing near the door of his quarters, but he paid little mind. After all, no one would dare disturb him, especially at this hour. At least, no one who wished to live.  
  
In the flickering lamplight Hook's iron claw looked particularly cruel, he noticed. The curve was inexact and the point uneven from variouse sharpenings. A little hesitant, he wrapped his gloved hand around the base and pulled it away. The equally crooked stump of scar material it held to made him wince, and he closed his eyes as he replaced the hook. He rarely removed it, only to sleep and then in the dark. After such time it had seemed as if his hand had simply evolved into an iron form, and it is always unnerving to see the removal of one's hand. The hook was useful, of course, though he rather regretted that it had been his right hand removed. He'd had to learn to write all over again, using the left hand, and several other tasks normally performed with the dominant hand had been akward to adjust to. There were also some things he simply copuldn't do without both hands.  
  
He couldn't play the harpsichord anymore. Not that that mattered much. Even if such things existed in Never Land he doubted he would have sought them out. Though back before, he remembered, it had been one of the few things he had enjoyed, and hearing some music other than crude sea chanties might do some good in calming him. The culture he had so loved back home was absent entirely in Never Land. Perhaps that was part of his disquietment.  
  
Home. That still seemed an odd concept. Where was home, anyway? London? Likely. It did no good to think on it, though. Even if he knew how to leave Never Land he couldn't return there, certainly not now, after all he had done. His proud Oxford character had began it's decay long before he had found himself here. Things he had done would make even a strong man uneasy. He'd been caught, of course, and fled....but how had he ended up in Never Land?  
  
The new enigma unnerved him. He hadn't really though much on it before, but looking back, he did not see how he could have NOT. How DOES one go from the streets of London Town to being washed up on the shores of this gross fantasy? He didn't know. All he remembered was a blurred time, slung between the blow of a police whistle and the pounding of his feet on the pavement. What had happened in that time?  
  
Hook froze in place quite suddenly, a trickle of sweat finding it's way down his neck. What if he'd been shot? Good lord, what if he had died there on the streets of London, his life flying apart in the claret explosion of a policeman's bullet? What if he had been recreated as nothing more than a character in a boy's fantasy, playing the villan for all time as punishment for his sins?  
  
But no.....that couldn't be it....could it? He had never been a firm beleiver in anything resembling a spirit, or god, or heaven and hell. How could this be hell? That certainly would account for it's occupants, all grown men of vile and spiteful nature, but why, then, children? Heaven....hell....  
  
Hook's skull gave a sharp pang of protest that translated into pain. It was to much, far to much. Stumbling a little he made it to his bed and collapsed onto the thick blankets covering it, absently kicking off his shoes in the process. Almost as an afterthought Hook extinguished the lamp and pulled the hook from his wrist. Sleep, now. Everthing will be right in the morning.  
  
But he could not. 


End file.
